THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume X, Issue # 125, May 17, 2008
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
SAVING ARCTIC PLANT SPECIES FROM CLIMATE CHANGE
By Dennis T. Avery
GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE & SPECIES SURVIVAL: MODERN HUMAN ARROGANCE REGARDING THE IMPACT OF
HUMAN ACTIVITY ON THE EARTH & ITS ENVIRONMENT -- THE MODERN BELIEF THAT HUMANS CAN & MUST TAKE ACTION
TO SAVE NATURE'S SEEDS FROM THE SAME CLIMATE CHANGES WHICH HAVE PERSISTED THROUGHOUT TIME --
PREVAILING WINDS & BIOLOGICAL EVOLUTION AS NATURE'S METHODS OF ENSURING SPECIES SURVIVAL -- WILL HUMANS
CONTINUE TO PERSIST, OR WILL WE FRIGHTEN OURSELVES INTO EXTINCTION OVER A PLANETARY WARMING THAT HAS
TOTALED 0.2 DEGREES CELSIUS SINCE 1940 --WILL THE IDEOLOGICALLY DRIVEN ENVIRONMENTALISTS BE ALLOWED TO
STOP & REVERSE HUMAN PROGRESS, BLOCK ECONOMIC GROWTH & PROSPERITY, & DESTROY CIVILIZATION
FULL STORY:
The Norwegian government is building its high-tech new Global Seed Vault on the Arctic island of Svalbard to protect the
world’s plant varieties in case of global climate change. Meanwhile, outside the Svalbard vault, the island’s own hardy
Arctic plants are demonstrating that Mother Nature knows how to keep her species alive through natural adaptation to the
earth’s naturally radical climate cycling
During the last Ice Age, Svalbard was frozen under mile-thick ice for 90,000 years. Even the polar bears were driven south,
and the island probably had no surviving plants at all. But when the Ice Age ended about 12,000 years ago, global
temperatures swiftly rose more than 15 degrees Celsius — and 40 percent of Svalbard became ice-free. Almost immediately,
says a research team, such Arctic plants as mountain avens and white arctic bell heather colonized the newly available
territory
Inger Greve Alsos, who studies the biology of Svalbard, recently reported on a new DNA analysis of its tough and
persistent plant life (“Frequent Long-distance Plant Colonization in the Changing Arctic,” Science, Volume 316, 2007.)
Her report says Svalbard has been colonized by plants repeatedly as it warmed and froze during Ice Ages and warm
interglacials. The plants presumably also thrived during the eight global warmings that Svalbard and the earth have
experienced since the last Ice Age — as they are in ours.
“For all except one species, multiple seeds were necessary to bring the observed genetic diversity to Svalbard,” says
biologist Alsos. She estimates that re-establishing the mountain aven on Svalbard would have required thousands of seeds.
Dr. Alsos’ work suggests, however, that whenever Svalbard has been warm enough for the plants, the seeds have arrived
Apparently, the mountain aven came from Russia, hundreds of miles across the Arctic sea, blown by the prevailing
southeastern winds across the ice. Dr. Alsos says Svalbard has also been repeatedly colonized by plants from Greenland,
Iceland, and even Canada — but not from Scandinavia, which is nearer and along bird migration routes. Scandinavian
seeds would have had to travel upwind. That didn’t happen
“Recurrent glacial cycles have probably selected for a highly mobile arctic flora,” said the Svalbard research team in their
Science report. “In addition, some dispersal vectors may be particularly efficient in the Arctic, as a result of the open
landscape.”
Modern humans have become arrogant about our impact on the earth. We think we have to save Nature’s seeds — from the
same climate changes that have persisted throughout time. The Ice Ages come every 100,000 years, whether we burn fossil
fuels or not. The ice cores, seabed sediments, fossil pollen, and cave stalagmites all testify to a moderate, natural 1,500-year
climate cycle that is tied to the sun and has persisted through the past million years. The Russians tell us there’s even a
short Arctic climate cycle of about 70 years, and that the Arctic was warmer in the 1920s than it is today. Today, many
decision-makers are doing their best to ignore this evidence and foster illusions about the destructive power of our modern
world.
The plants and polar bears have evolved to deal with climate changes. It was the Viking colonists on southern Greenland
1,000 years ago who couldn’t adapt when the Little Ice Age arrived, bringing sea ice to their shores.
Whenever the sun warms the oceans, Svalbard will have ice-free land, and the Arctic plants will cycle back. The question
remains whether humans will continue to persist — or whether we will frighten ourselves into extinction over a planetary
warming that has totaled 0.2 degrees since 1940 — right on the 1,500-year cycle’s schedule
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
The Earth's Natural History, Global Climate Changes,
& the Future of Human Life & Civilization on the Planet:
Science, Ideology, & Public Policy
Political Environmentalism Versus Human Progress & Prosperity:
Policy Issues Relating to Energy, Environment,
& Natural Resources
Dennis T. Avery is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute in Washington, D.C., and is the Director of the Institute's Center for
Global Food Issues (www.cgfi.org). Formerly he was a senior policy analyst for the United
States Department of State, where he won the National Intelligence Medal of Achievement. He is the co-author, with
atmospheric physicist Fred Singer, of the book, Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1500 Years (Blue Ridge Summit,
Pennsylvania: Rowman & Littlefield, 2006). Avery's book, Saving the Planet With Pesticides and Plastic: The Environmental
Triumph of High-Yield Farming (Washington, D.C.: Hudson Institute, 1995), continues to be popular as a readable overview
of realistic agriculture for the future and for today. Readers may write Avery at Post Office Box 202, Churchville, Virginia, 24421.
Email: cgfi@hughes.net
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THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Conservative & Free-Market Analysis of Government, Politics & Public Policy, Covering Political, Legal, Constitutional, Economic,
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Conservative Government Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity